Posted on

Worth Blogging About

Finally, something worth blogging about. I hit a milestone. Wanna guess what it is?

Oh wait. Never mind. I hate when you have something exciting to share, ask people to guess, and they come up with something way more exciting, which just spoils your fun. (I know Amy can relate to that one!)

It wasn’t a running thing. While I did manage to complete my first jog 10/walk 5 this morning, for the second round, I ended up with jog 5/walk 5/jog 5. I’m getting there. I need to do two of the jog 10/walk 5 rounds in a row. At least I did manage to jog for a total of 20 minutes.

I could get discouraged. But I keep reminding myself how I struggled to even jog for 5 minutes a couple of weeks ago. I’m getting better. Just slowly. It would be so much easier if it weren’t so hot. I think I need to drink more water, too. That’s pretty much all I drink, I just don’t drink enough.

Anyway, no running milestone. But, in addition to the running, I’ve been trying to lose weight. That also affects my energy levels, I think, but I am figuring that out.

I started focusing on the weight thing in early May. I am simply eating smaller portions and trying to avoid junk. By smaller portions, I mean, when I get full, I stop eating. It seems wasteful, but the dogs are usually happy.

I allow myself things like a candy bar, ice cream, popcorn, etc., every now and then. And I try to limit my snacks to fruit or pretzels. It’s easy to maintain this strategy because I am seeing progress. How much progress? That’s the milestone…

Since May 4, which was 59 days ago, I’ve lost 20 pounds! Yep, the big two-oh. That’s 0.338 pounds/day or about 2.35 pounds/week. I’m almost halfway to my goal (I told you I’d packed on some pounds).

At this rate, I might actually be able to rejoin my soccer team in the Fall. Oh yeah, and run a 10-mile marathon. (Ten miles isn’t technically a marathon, or even a half-marathon, but it’s a marathon to me!)

Losing another 30 pounds would be nice. It would make me lighter than I’ve been in years. Just losing another 20 would make me happy. If I can keep whittling slowly away at the pounds like I have been, it might actually happen.

I’ll keep y’all posted.

Posted on

My Food "Issue"

I have this thing about food. I get cravings, hankerings for a particular thing, and that’s all I want to eat for a week or so. Not “all” as in eat nothing else, but “all” as in can’t get enough of.

My latest obsession? Blueberries.


Throughout most of the year, fresh blueberries are prohibitively expensive. I mean, I could buy some if I really wanted to, if I could get past paying like $6 for half a pint.

Now that summer is approaching, blueberries are coming into season. So they are much more reasonably priced.

Case in point… last night, I got an 18-ounce (about 2 pints) box of fresh California blueberries for $4. They are the fattest, juiciest, most perfect blueberries ever. Click on the image above to get a close look at my beautiful blueberries.

Since I am trying to lose weight, I try to snack on lower-calorie, healthier fare. My strategy is working, too. Just from eating less, eating better, and exercising a bit.

I’m sure the blueberries, help. Lucky for me, the sale runs through Tuesday. I’m envisioning daily trips to Safeway…

Posted on

My First Love

Ever wonder what happened to your first true love? I do. And thanks to an old episode of A&E’s (cable channel) Biography show, which I just saw recently, I know.

I’m not sure why this song popped into my head today. But boy did it bring back memories. Me and my two best girlfriends at the time — Carol and Laura — LOVED Shaun Cassidy.

Now, I liked David Cassidy, too (his older brother). But I loved Shaun.

We all had pictures of him from various teen magazines plastered all over our bedrooms. Of course, we each owned all of his albums, which we listened to incessantly. And Laura, who was a bit spoiled, had Shaun Cassidy jeans, tee shirts, satin jacket, and maybe even a record player. I named my first hamster after him, too.

I forget what year and exactly how old we were (maybe 12?), but he actually came to Baltimore and did a concert. We all had to go. Carol was soooo excited and overwhelmed by his presence (even though we were like 6,000 feet from the stage) that she cried the whole time. Through the entire concert, she wept. Murmuring, “Oh my God, Shaun. I can’t believe it’s Shaun.” Throughout the concert. It was weird, but certainly memorable.

Anyway, back to where he is now… He is actually a renowned writer and producer of a bunch of very popular TV shows. Here’s the list. I found that interesting, though I can’t say I’ve seen many of the shows.

Sorry if this song is stuck in your head now.

Posted on

Foiled Again / Perseverance

UPDATE: If you have not read the original post by now, I’ll just say I had to skip the jog/walk this morning because of rain (see second weather map below). However, we’re actually experiencing scattered thunderstorms. It was clear at 1:00, so I prepared to train.

Then a colleague called with a question I had to answer. To get said answer, I had to call another colleague. Before I knew it, it was 1:25!

It was sprinkling a bit when I left, but I figured I’d be wet from sweat anyway.

And guess what?

I did TWO full jog/walk cycles (5 minute jog followed by 5 minute walk). I probably could have pressed on and finished the third one, but by then there was thunder. That made wet-training-ToadMama feel like wet-lightning rod-training-ToadMama. So I stopped.

But I had actually done two, five-minute jogs. Yay me!

Here’s another map to back me up (I’m a weather geek).

—–

ORIGINAL POST: I woke early to train this morning. But it was storming. Again. Take a look at what passed through. My house is right in the middle of this map.


We’ve had some really weird weather lately. It is mid-June, but highs over the last two days have only been in the 60s. Not that I’m complaining. I MUCH prefer those temperatures to 80+ degrees and humid.

It’s just weird. That’s all I’m saying.

Posted on

The "New" Double-Wide

I saw an interesting article on the CNN Web site today about recycled houses. The company featured in the story — SG Blocks — converts old shipping containers into new homes.

The concept sounds a bit strange until you read more. And get a look at this house…

It’s actually quite cute if you ask me.

Wonder if they, or a similar company, do work in Maryland? A certain friend of mine may need a nice new home soon.

Posted on

Um, What!?!

I’ve had issues with my keyboard for a while now. (Faithful readers might remember this post from April.) Today, it decided to act up. Sometimes keys will stick. Sometimes certain keys won’t work. Today’s glitches were a mixed bag.

I was dealing with it though, until I managed to hit some unknown sequence of working keys/not-working keys that made this happen…

I did not alter this image. That’s how my monitor looked. I couldn’t take a picture of actual work (aka “secret stuff”), so I went to the Google page. But first I had to close the 15 things I had open.

That is much easier said than done. YOU try using a mouse once when your image has rotated 90 degrees to the left.

How to fix this? Restart the computer? I did that. The screen was still cocked to the left. A quick Internet search (thank goodness my personal computer was handy) yielded a few suggestions of hot-key combinations to try. They didn’t work. Luckily, once I was logged back in to my employer’s network, the security settings made the computer revert back to the default settings.

I did discover how to fix it in the future. Right-click while on your Desktop and you’ll see a pop-up menu with NVIDIA Control Panel as one of the choices. I’ll remember that for next time.